More Faces of Her to Love
by MysticScribe
Summary: Short portrait. After a visit at St.Mungo's, Andromeda Tonks reflects on her life.


_As I was translating from French to English Chapter 11 of my story "Harry Potter and the Lost Prophecy", I had an idea about a short portrait. _

_Here it is._ _Reviews are always appreciated. Thank you for reading._

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**More Faces of Her to Love **

That night, they Flooed back home and they stood in the kitchen in silence, looking at each other. They were not able to speak their fears.

They were being uncommonly reserved about what they had just learned. Her husband had kissed her softly on the forehead and he had muttered, « I'm going to work in the library, honey. Try not to worry too much.»

_Try not to worry? My daughter, Ted._

_Our daughter_

She nodded absent-mindedly and stayed still in the middle of the dark kitchen for what she believed a long time, feeling empty and so tired she was afraid of not being able to move again if she sat down. She got lost in her thoughts for a while and then she felt in the mood for the old photo album.

She knew she should have been working too, racking her brains on that herb compound the researchers at St. Mungo's had been waiting for a week now.

It may have silenced the internal monologues, the fears, the pains, but she just could not.

_Not tonight_

_My daughter_

_Injured_

She walked toward the small library they had arranged in Nymphadora's room when she moved out and she tiptoed in, knowing that Ted would be snoring softly, _working_ in his dreams. He was asleep on the recliner; his glasses were askew on his nose, a quill in a hand and a parchment on his lap. The ink was to drip on the hardwood floor. She tenderly smiled and she arranged a quilt on his long legs, taking the quill from his limp hand. Ted was so sentimental about that room: he wanted to keep the old wallpaper and she had to fight her way to tear it down for some other colour than pink.

_I've seen enough pink for my entire life_

She retrieved the old photo album on a crowded bookshelf and when she felt its weight in her hands, she hesitated. Her thumbs rubbed the faded green leather and she caressed with a reluctant finger the gold letters that were shimmering, as they were moving under a light breeze.

_Ted, Andromeda and Nymphadora Tonks_

_Memories_

She went back to the kitchen, flickered the candles with her wand and let the album fall on the kitchen table in a small _thump_. She sat slowly, bringing one leg under her and she flipped open the album, her eyes meeting the gap-toothed smile of her daughter with auburn pigtails.

Now with blue braids.

Now with a tiny pink bob.

_Nymphadora, my baby girl_

She gave her a name that would have fitted well with her former life. «The life when you were rich, Mum?» as her perceptive little girl use to tell her when they cuddled up in front of the fire and they looked at old photographs.

_Yes, baby, yes, when I did not know what that life really meant._

Nymphadora.

_A lovely, lovely name for my baby. _

And she really was a nymph, a gorgeous girl - when she finally passed out of exhaustion after roaming the house.

Andromeda thought she had her hands full all right. When she finally got confirmation in St. Mungo's that her daughter was a Metamorphmagus, Ted smiled happily and said, «More faces of her to love.»

_Ted, bless you and your marvellous innocent soul_

Well, he has not been the one sobbing when she thought she lost her on Diagon Alley or when Nymphadora hid so well in the house that she thought she was going crazy, as she could not find her.

Oh yes, she had panicked at first: she felt Nymphadora was a little devil with a cunning pretty sweet girl cover that had Ted completely under her spell.

_Scheming impossible plans, lying, disappearing for hours…exactly like Bellatrix used to do. _

Andromeda knew it: she had been way too stern with her daughter, trying to kill in the egg the roots of what blossomed in her older sister.

She never would have admitted it to her daughter, but when Nymphadora decided as a rebellious pre-teenager she wanted to be called Tonks by _everybody_, including her own parents, Andromeda had heaved a huge sigh of relief behind closed doors.

_She is choosing who she wants to be._

_And she's not a Black._

Andromeda was also relieved when her daughter was sorted into Hufflepuff. She understood that Nymphadora was saved. Her daughter _wanted_ to be good and loyal. Andromeda had not failed her.

She pondered on a small picture of her in her Slytherin robes and she shivered under the strength of the memories that engulfed her.

_She_ had been sorted in Slytherin, even if the Sorting Hat had strongly suggested Ravenclaw. At that time, she was trying to persuade herself she _wanted_ Slytherin. She had been brought up that way. Bellatrix was already there and the family pressure was unbearable.

_I believe now_ _"Toujours pur" is soiled blood; it speaks too loudly to be truly pure._

Before the Sorting, Andromeda had met Professor Flitwick and he was so very nice to her: she would have loved to be cared and to be tutored by this gentle, devoted man, for all seven years at Hogwarts.

Instead, she had bowed a bit her head, in front of every student of Hogwarts and she had whispered, «No, Slytherin, _please_, don't let me go anywhere else.» Bellatrix had looked at her with a disgusted look.

_She knew I doubted _

And the long path to hell had started. Andromeda was bullied by her own sisters, when Narcissa arrived a few years later. When her cousin Sirius got sorted into Gryffindor a few years later, she lived vicariously through him: she wrote him long letters, asking him what was it like to be something else than a Slytherin and he would write back ridiculously short gloating missives. She had run away with Ted, rejecting finally what she had been and what her parents wanted her to become.

Andromeda turned hastily the pages of the album and a ten-year-old Sirius smiled to her as he had an arm around her neck.

_Sirius_

_How could you?_

She could remember where she was

_In the kitchen, cooking eggs and bacon for Ted _

when Ted said to her with a strangled voice, «Is Sirius Black your cousin, honey?» She had turned around and she had smiled, «Yes, he is. It's been a while since I've heard of him.» Silently, her husband had handed her «The Daily Prophet» and her heart had stopped. She had read the news and she had shook her head, first slowly then strongly, and she had said in a high-pitched voice that did not seem like hers, «No, this is not possible.»

When she saw her sister's name and what was reproached to her

_What she had done_

_My sister_

_My blood_

the newspaper had fallen to her feet, under the penetrating gaze of her husband. Ted had rose from his chair, with a concerned look on his face, «Now, Andromeda-»

But she had threw her apron on the floor and she had stormed into their bedroom, frantically opening the closets, looking for that huge box of pictures she still had and she lit a fire with a furious flick of her wrist.

As her husband watched her, helpless, she cried her heart out as she burned everything that still tied her to the Blacks: old letters, pictures, a petrified frog Sirius had given her, a dress she wore when Bellatrix turned seventeen.

_I could not burn that picture of Sirius and me, just before he tried to kiss me, already so assured of his charm._

_He was ten years old, good Merlin, and I was fifteen. _

_And I kept another one_

Andromeda's fingers went searching in the lining of the album and she retrieved a small picture she had kept all these years.

_Bellatrix, Narcissa and me, before Hogwarts, before everything, before I became the rebellious one_

She had seen her daughter tonight, looking so pale and she could not say a thing.

Nymphadora was looking at her with a pained look in her eyes and she could only comfort her by caressing her hair. Then Nymphadora had whispered, «Mum?»

She had taken her hand and she had ruffled her hair, «What, baby?»

Her heart stopped again when Nymphadora spoke to her with a shaky voice.

_She never speaks about what she does._

«I hesitated, Mum. I hesitated and it almost got me killed.»

Andromeda had swallowed back her tears and she had dared to ask, « You hesitated, sweetie? What do you mean?»

Nymphadora had started to cry, as Andromeda had never seen her cry before, with profound, heartbreaking sobs. As her daughter was shaking all over, Andromeda had held her in silence.

Nymphadora had managed to say, «I fought against Bellatrix when I got hexed, Mum. Your sister. »

This time, Andromeda did not cry. Her heart did not stop. She did not show any emotions.

She has cradled her daughter to sleep, under the misty-eyed gaze of that nice-looking fellow that seemed to keep a close eye on her .

_Lutin? Lupin?_

But now, Andromeda was looking at the picture of her sisters and she reached for her wand. She stood up, pulled back her long hair and she pointed the picture, spitting between her teeth, «_Incendio!» _

Andromeda Tonks watched the picture turn to ashes and she said aloud, her voice firm with a new resolution, «Never hesitate anymore, baby. Never.»

_The End_


End file.
